


Auburn Road Bridge

by GretchenSinister



Series: My Top 10 Rise of the Guardians Otherships & Crossovers Fics [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M, the relationship aspect is light enough to be ignored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 04:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20614625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So many OCs have something special that allow them to see Jack and the Guardians– but I would like a twist.Jack follows a young woman who can see him: she always wears the same clothes, her memory slips whole days, and she casts no shadow.Why can’t a ghost see a ghost?"A ghost of a girl can see Jack. The thing you have to ask with ghosts, though, is how they became ghosts. In this case, Jack knows. He’s not going to tell her.





	Auburn Road Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 10/28/2013.

He knows what she is. Every day, she’s in the same pair of jeans, the same bright pink coat with the green sweater underneath. Every day, he meets her in the same place, though he never sees her arrive, not even when he gets there early. One minute she isn’t there, then—blink—and she is.  
  
She’s not quite like him. That isn’t important. What’s important is that she can see him (when she couldn’t before). What’s important is that she can talk to him.  
  
She doesn’t know what she is. Jack figured that out as soon as he first saw her where she always appears, when he called her by her name and she answered.  
  
He hadn’t been expected her to answer. But he liked to greet kids by name, just to prove that he wasn’t drifting away from the world. Whatever he was meant to do, he was sure he wouldn’t find it by just giving up. Even after all this time, he felt there was still a chance that there was something he was meant to do. Even after—.   
  
Then again, she’s not quite a kid anymore, her face frozen midway in that inexorable fall to adulthood, just like that inexorable fall to—.   
  
When she had answered to her name, that first day, Jack’s almost sure that she hadn’t remembered it before he said it, that she had turned around only in relief at being addressed directly. He understands.  
  
He knows she doesn’t know what she is because she doesn’t understand why the other people around them ignore them so completely, she doesn’t understand why she can’t seem to remember what happened to her during the day, and she doesn’t understand why she’s always wearing the same clothes. Once Jack saw her looking down and he thought she might have noticed that she didn’t cast a shadow. If she did notice that, she ignored it.  
  
He encourages her explanations for the strange things she notices. With his support, she’s good at convincing herself that things aren’t that strange.   
  
Jack’s seen living people with injured brains do the same thing. He wonders if maybe she’s dealing with that, too. After all, the way she—.  
  
_This is my favorite sweater, my mom will be mad that I’m wearing it so many days in a row. Can you believe how cold it’s staying this year? No wonder I’m wearing my coat so far into the spring. People are so rude these days. I bet they think we’re up to no good just because we’re teenagers. School is so boring, I must have slept in every single one of my classes today._  
  
Jack makes sure that no one walks through either of them. He doesn’t want her to find out the truth that way.  
  
She always vanishes in a blink when they reach the Auburn Road bridge, which she insists on walking to every afternoon. One minute she’ll be there, talking and laughing with Jack, and the next she’ll be gone, leaving Jack looking at the sign on the bridge instead of her face. The sign that says:  
  
WATCH FOR ICE ON BRIDGE  
  
Every night, he makes sure to tell the high, cold, silent moon that he hadn’t done it on purpose. He didn’t know the car would be going that fast. He didn’t know he’d end up with someone who could see him, talk to him. He wouldn’t do it again. He just needs one person. Just one. And she’ll stay. She will. As long as she doesn’t know what she is. And Jack’s not going to tell her. Not with the other thing he’d have to tell.


End file.
